"Who?" I asked, pretending to misunderstand.
"_He!_" demanded Quint fiercely. "If he has I"ll kill him some day."
_He_ meant his one-time friend, Dr. Boomly. Alas!
"For heaven"s sake, why are you two perpetually squabbling?" I asked wearily. "You used to be inseparable friends. Why can"t you make up?"
"Because I"ve come to know him. That"s why! I have unmasked this--this Borgia--this Machiavelli--this monster of duplicity! Matters are approaching a point where something has got to be done short of murder.
I"ve stood all his envy and jealousy and cheap imputations and hints and contemptible innuendoes that I"m going to--"
He stopped short, glaring at the doorway, which had suddenly been darkened by the vast bulk of Professor Boomly--a figure largely abdominal but majestic--like the ma.s.sive b.u.t.t end of an elephant. For the rest, he had a rather insignificant and peevish face and a melancholy mustache that usually looked damp.
"Mr. Smith," he said to me, in his thin, high, sarcastic voice--a voice incongruously at variance with his bulk--"has anybody had the infernal impudence to enter my room and nose about my desk?"
"Yes, _I_ have!" replied Quint excitedly. "I"ve been in your room. What of it? What about it?"
Boomly permitted his heavy-lidded eyes to rest on Quint for a moment, then, turning to me:
"I want a patent lock put on my door. Will you speak to Professor Farrago?"
"I want one put on mine, too!" cried Quint. "I want a lock put on my door which will keep envious, dull-minded, mentally broken-down, impertinent, and fat people out of my office!"
Boomly flushed heavily:
"Fat?" he repeated, glaring at Quint. "Did you say "fat?""
"Yes, fat--intellectually and corporeally fat! I want that kind of individual kept out. I don"t trust them. I"m afraid of them. Their minds are atrophied. They are unmoral, possibly even criminal! I don"t want them in my room snooping about to see what I have and what I"m doing. I don"t want them to sneak in, eaten up with jealousy and envy, and try to damage the eggs of the Silver Moon b.u.t.terfly because the honour and glory of hatching them would probably procure for me the Carnegie Educational Medal--"
"Why, you little, dried-up, protoplasmic atom!" burst out Boomly, his face suffused with pa.s.sion, "Are you insinuating that I have any designs on your batch of eggs?"
"It"s my belief," shouted Quint, "that you want that medal yourself, and that you put an ichneumon fly in my breeding-cage in hopes it would sting the eggs of the Silver Moon."
"If you found an ichneumon fly there," retorted Boomly, "you probably hatched it in mistake for a b.u.t.terfly!" And he burst into a peal of contemptuous laughter, but his little, pig-like eyes under the heavy lids were furious.
"I now believe," said Quint, trembling with rage, "that you have criminally subst.i.tuted a batch of common _Plexippus_ eggs for the Silver Moon eggs I had in my breeding-cage! I believe you are sufficiently abandoned to do it!"
"Ha! Ha!" retorted Boomly scornfully. "I don"t believe you ever had anything in your breeding-cage except a few clothes moths and c.o.c.kroaches!"
Quint began to dance:
"You _did_ take them!" he yelled; "and you left me a bunch of milkweed b.u.t.terflies" eggs! Give me my eggs or I shall violently a.s.sault you!"
"a.s.sault your grandmother!" remarked Boomly, with unscientific brevity.
"What do you suppose I want of your ridiculous eggs? Haven"t I enough eggs of _Heliconius salome_ hatching to give me the Carnegie medal if I want it?"
"The Silver Moon eggs are unique!" cried Quint. "You know it! You know that if they hatch, pupate, and become perfect insects that I shall certainly be awarded--"
"You"ll be awarded the Matteawan medal," remarked Boomly with venom.
Quint ran at him with a half-suppressed howl, his momentum carrying him halfway up Professor Boomly"s person. Then, losing foothold, he fell to the floor and began to kick in the general direction of Professor Boomly.
It was a sorrowful sight to see these two celebrated scientists panting, mauling, scuffling and punching each other around the room, tables and chairs and sc.r.a.pbaskets flying in every direction, and I mounted on the window-sill horrified, speechless, trying to keep clear of the revolving storm centre.
"Where are my Silver Moon eggs!" screamed Dr. Quint. "Where are my eggs that Jones brought me from Singapore--you entomological robber! You"ve got "em somewhere! If you don"t give "em up I"ll find means to destroy you!"
"You insignificant pair of maxillary palpi!" bellowed Professor Boomly, galloping after Dr. Quint as he dodged around my desk. "I"ll pull off those antennae you call whiskers if I can get hold of em--"
Dr. Quint"s threatened mustaches bristled as he fled before the elephantine charge of Professor Boomly--once again around my desk, then out into the hall, where I heard the door of his office slam, and Boomly, gasping, panting, breathing vengeance outside, and vowing to leave Quint quite whiskerless when he caught him.
It was a painful scene for scientists to figure in or to gaze upon.
Profoundly shocked and upset, I locked up the anthropological department offices and went out into the Park, where the sun was shining and a gentle June wind stirred the trees.
Too completely upset to do any more work that day, I wandered about amid the gaily dressed crowds at hazard; sometimes I contemplated the monkeys; sometimes gazed sadly upon the seals. They dashed and splashed and raced round and round their tank, or crawled up on the rocks, craned their wet, sleek necks, and barked--houp! houp! houp!
For luncheon I went over to the Rolling Stone Restaurant. There was a very pretty girl there--an unusually pretty girl--or perhaps it was one of those days on which every girl looked unusually pretty to me. There are such days.
Her voice was exquisite when she spoke. She said:
"We have, today, corned beef hash, fried ham and eggs, liver and bacon--" but let that pa.s.s, too.
I took my tea very weak; by that time I learned that her name was Mildred Case; that she had been a private detective employed in a department store, and that her duties had been to nab wealthy ladies who forgot to pay for objects usually discovered in their reticules, bosoms, and sometimes in their stockings.
But the confinement of indoor work had been too much for Mildred Case, and the only outdoor job she could find was the position of lady waitress in the rustic Rolling Stone Inn.
She was very, very beautiful, or perhaps it was one of those days--but let that pa.s.s, too.
"You are the great Mr. Percy Smith, Curator of the Anthropological Department, are you not?" she asked shyly.
"Yes," I said modestly; and, to slightly rebuke any superfluous pride in me, I paraphrased with becoming humility, pointing upward: "but remember, Mildred, there is One greater than I."
"Mr. Carnegie?" she nodded innocently. That was true, too. I let it go at that.
We chatted: she mentioned Professor Boomly and Dr. Quint, gently deploring the rupture of their friendship. Both gentlemen, in common with the majority of the administration personnel, were daily customers at the Rolling Stone Inn. I usually took my lunch from my boarding-house to my office, being too busy to go out for mere nourishment.
That is why I had hitherto missed Mildred Case.
"Mildred," I said, "I do not believe it can be wholesome for a man to eat sandwiches while taking minute measurements of defunct monkeys. Also, it is not a fragrant pastime. Hereafter I shall lunch here."
"It will be a pleasure to serve you," said that unusually--there I go again! It was an unusually beautiful day in June. Which careful, exact, and scientific statement, I think ought to cover the subject under consideration.
After luncheon I sadly selected a five-cent cigar; and, as I hesitated, lingering over the gla.s.s case, undecided still whether to give full rein to this contemplated extravagance, I looked up and found her beautiful grey eyes gazing into mine.
"What gentle thoughts are yours, Mildred?" I said softly.
"The cigar you have selected," she murmured, "is fly-specked."
Deeply touched that this young girl should have cared--that she should have expressed her solicitude so modestly, so sweetly, concerning the maculatory condition of my cigar, I thanked her and purchased, for the same sum, a packet of cigarettes.
That was going somewhat far for me. I had never in all my life even dreamed of smoking a cigarette. To a reserved, thoughtful, and scientific mind there is, about a packet of cigarettes, something undignified, something vaguely frolicsome.